


The Whole “Being Summoned” Thing

by WorseOmens



Series: Good Omens Outsider POVs [18]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Beetlejuice References, Crowley is good with kids, Cultists are dumb, Demon Summoning, Loving but highly questionable parenting by one particular OC, M/M, Scary Crowley (Good Omens), outsider pov, pinky promises, summoning fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:56:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23891188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorseOmens/pseuds/WorseOmens
Summary: Crowley is summoned by an inexperienced cult. He quickly finds his ticket to freedom, but not in the place he expected.
Relationships: Crowley & OCs, aziraphale/Crowley (mentioned)
Series: Good Omens Outsider POVs [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545919
Comments: 110
Kudos: 1146
Collections: Crowley's Demonic Side, Good Omens, Shady Good Omens Faves





	1. Say My Name

Crowley landed flat in his back with a long groan. The cellar floor was hard, and the air was thick with incense and candle-smoke. He recognised the cocktail of sweat, fear and ritual materials instantly: _ah, new cult._

He lay there for a moment in the middle of the summoning circle, not quite able to muster the energy to sit up and start dealing with these idiots. They were saying something to him, even now, but he ignored it. Why was it always him? Why couldn’t it be some disposable demon that got summoned for once? It was date night, for someone’s sake! Aziraphale would have his head if he was late. They were supposed to be seeing a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this evening.

“Demon! Foul serpent of the bottomless pit, tempter of men! Rise, that we may speak to you,” commanded one hooded figure with a tremor in his voice. Crowley sighed deeply.

“I have a name,” he said, without making any move to sit up off the floor. 

“We know the power we would give you by speaking that name. We won’t be fooled,” said the other cultist, dressed in the same heavy, dark robes that couldn’t be comfortable in the humid air of the cellar. 

“Right,” he said, cursing under his breath. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. Sometimes, the inexperienced ones slipped up and released him by mistake, if they didn’t know much about demons. He wasn’t so lucky this time. “Come on, then. Why am I here? May as well tell me.”

The two lead cultists looked at one another briefly, as their other hooded colleagues muttered in the background. “We wish to make a deal,” said the woman, spreading her arms melodramatically. Crowley rolled his eyes. “Our immortal souls, in exchange for untold infernal power.”

He pushed himself to his feet, shaking his head. “Nah,” he said.

There was a beat of silence. “What?”

“Nah. Not my thing, deals,” he said, dusting off his hands and suddenly noticing the odd translucence in them. He baulked. “What the - ? Where’s my - ? _Did you summon me without my bloody corporation?”_

“Erm,” said the man, not quite sure. The rug had been quickly snatched from under them once it became clear that this demon wasn’t the foreboding-archaic-monologue type. “What does that... mean?”

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fucking amateurs,” he mumbled, hoping to god that no one stumbled across his empty corporation where he’d left it. The last thing he wanted was to wake up in a crematorium. “It means, among other things... I can do _this._ ”

He stepped out of the summoning circle. They gave a collective gasp, stumbling backward. One tripped over his robe, sending him toppling backwards into another, which set off a chain of satanic dominoes leaving all but two of the cultists sprawled out over the grimy stone floor. He raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t usually that easy. The two left standing glanced desperately between Crowley and their friends. He smirked, and lurched forward with his claws outstretched, as if to grab them. The man shrieked, and fell to the floor like the others. The woman, however...

Her hood fell back as she snatched a long dagger from the bowl of chicken guts on the floor. “Back! Back, foul beast!” she cried, swishing the blade back and forth. Crowley flinched, feeling the biting aura of pure iron. He lurched out of stabbing range, staring his attacker right in the face. She had a large birthmark across the bridge of her nose. If he were in his corporation, the iron wouldn’t have been an issue, but now? Slightly more worrying. “Aha! Not so cocky now!”

He curled his lip, taking slow steps backward. His eyes scanned the scene: the cultists were hurrying to get back to their feet and arm themselves with the ritual paraphernalia lying about the floor. He kept backing up, trying to keep them all in his line of sight. The stepping-out-of-the-circle trick had been a great movie moment, but with hindsight, possibly not his smartest move. He had no body, and no way out. He was bound to the incorporeal plane until someone whose blood had been used in the ritual - that is, any of the cultists - released him. He hadn’t exactly endeared himself so far. If he wasn’t careful, the only way he’d be leaving this plane was via Azrael themselves.

He spread his palms as if in surrender. “Look, guys... we can just talk about this, right?” he said with a too-little-too-late smile. Someone launched an iron bowl at his head, which he narrowly dodged, leaving it to clatter against the wall. “Right, no talking!”

He turned and bolted for the door. It was laden with padlocks and deadbolts, which gave him a perfect head-start as he phased through them and into the stairwell. They slammed into the door, pounding on it and cursing as he sprinted up the stairs and onto the ground floor.

He looked around in amazement. “Is this a castle?” he wondered aloud as he ran through the vast stone halls. He didn’t really have a plan from here on in. Maybe, if there was some way he could contact Aziraphale, he could help. Humans tended to listen to angels, right? It was the celestial equivalent of when the supply teacher threatened to call an unruly student’s parents.

Somewhere far behind him, a door slammed open, and the shouts of angry humans echoed through the halls. He cursed, and started jumping through more and more walls. Each room flickered by in sequence: a library, a study, a dining room, a living room, a child’s bedroom (complete with child), a — 

_Hang on, what?_ he thought, skidding to a halt and jumping back into the room he’d just passed. It was pitch dark, but his reptilian eyes cut through the shadows like the glow of lamplight through fog. There was a tiny bed pushed against the wall, with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the wall above it. Disney princess dolls littered the floor, and a wind-up race car track sat in the middle of the green polka dot rug. There was a small lump on the bed, which rose and fell in a rhythm too fast to be restful. The child was pretending to be asleep, and she was scared. 

She’d been counting sheep when the gangly, flickering shadow-man had burst from one wall and gone running through the other before she even had time to scream. His eyes burnt yellow in the dark, and she could’ve sworn he saw a flash of sharp white teeth. She’d cowered in bed, stunned. Her tiny heart hammered in her chest. Then, slowly, the shadow-man had pushed back through the wall, leaning back into the room like something had caught his eye. It had. It was her, and she knew it. She curled on her bed in mute terror, listening to the monster’s breathing, adrenaline pulsing through her veins. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, shaking, praying that if she just didn’t move then he’d disappear. She heard shouting from the hall outside. The shadow-man hissed - a sickening, animalistic noise, frighteningly close to her face - and the door rattled. She whimpered as it opened, sensing a shaft of light cutting into her room. 

“Sophie!” her mother cried, running into the room with her robes flapping around her legs. 

“Mummy!” she said, her eyes snapping open, squinting in the new light. No one was here; the shadow-man was gone, chased away by the light from the hallway. She almost cried from relief. 

“Thank god you’re okay,” her mother said, pressing a soft kiss to the birthmark on her nose which matched her own. “Listen to me, Sophie, I don’t have much time. Mummy and her friends did something - erm, something we shouldn’t have.”

Sophie swallowed hard, clinging to the musty-smelling robes her mother wore. “Can you stay?” she said, worried that the monster might come back. 

“No, sweetie, I can’t. I can’t,” she said, sounding genuinely pained. She took a hefty box of salt from her pocket. “Listen to me, Sophie. This is very important. I’m going to draw a circle around your bed, and you have to stay inside it, okay? You don’t leave this circle, not for anyone or anything. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter who they say they are, you can’t leave the circle. You can’t even touch it. Do you understand?”

She nodded hesitantly. “Yes, mummy.”

“Pinky promise?” she said shakily. Someone stood at the door, knife in hand, scanning the hallway for any sign of movement. Sophie nodded, and pinky-swore. “Thank you, Sophie. I love you, okay? I love you so much.”

She leaned across, pouring salt into the small gap between the bed and the wall, and all the way around until there was a complete circle spanning about half the room. If Sophie fell out of bed, she didn’t want her to disturb the circle. She should’ve drawn the summoning circle in salt too, rather than chalk, but she’d been certain the sigils would hold the demon on their own. She’d been naive. Now, she just had to hope that the books were right, and that bodiless spirits couldn’t cross the salt lines. They hadn’t expected him to be incorporeal. She glanced over to the door, sick with fear of the dark entity she’d brought into this place, and bit her lip. Now, she had to get rid of it. With one last kiss on her daughter’s forehead, she stepped cleanly over the salt line and left the room.

Sophie was plunged back into darkness. She gathered her blankets around her, uneasy. Footsteps thundered past her bedroom door and faded into silence. Soon, she was left with only the sound of the wind at her window... and something breathing under her bed.

She choked on a cry, pressing her hand tightly over her mouth. Something was there. Trying not to disturb the mattress, she leaned forward, peering tentatively over the edge of the bed. Her hair hung down over the edge; she held her breath, terrified that a hand would snatch a fistful and drag her to the floor. Nothing happened. The breathing, steady and constant, continued... Feeling a little bolder, she curled her fingers over the edge of the mattress, and leaned down to look under the bed. 

Two wide yellow eyes stared back. She gave a strangled shriek, leaping back, wrenching the covers over her head. Crowley winced, and crawled on his belly out from under the bed. He’d panicked when he heard the door opening, forgot his newfound ability to walk through walls, and went straight for the natural hiding place of all childhood nightmares. He knelt by the bed, looking guiltily at the shivering mound of blankets. He scratched the back of his neck. He couldn’t exactly leave; the salt circle took care of that. He cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Uh... hi,” he said. He glanced around the room, waiting for a response. None came. She gripped the blankets tighter over her head. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

There was a faint mumble from under the blankets. He smiled a little, recognising the shape of the words. “Sure. Pinky promise,” he said amusedly. 

Hesitantly, she began to lower the sheets down from her face. Her wide eyes strained in the dark, finding only a thin, indistinct silhouette knelt by her bed, with only those two slitted eyes to prove he wasn’t a trick of the light. It was the shadow-man. “Mummy said I shouldn’t talk to strangers,” she said quietly.

“Good advice,” he said, nodding, his eyes flicking around like he was worried about something. She wondered why he didn’t blink. “But I’m not a stranger, see. Your mummy invited me to visit.”

She pushed herself up slightly into a sitting position, but kept the blankets up like a shield between them. “Why are you in my room?”

He paused. Fair question. “I’m lost,” he said eventually. He glanced at the salt circle, and at his translucent hands. “And trapped.” 

“Are... Are you frightened?” she asked, dropping the blanket a little further. He tilted his head slightly, as if surprised that she even asked. He smiled, though she couldn’t see it. _Humans,_ he thought affectionately. 

“I’m worried,” he said. He wondered if he’d missed the start of his date with Aziraphale already. “Do you have the time?” 

Tentatively, she reached out from under her blankets, eyeing him suspiciously. He sat still, patiently waiting. She clicked on the nightlight, looking at the clock. “Nine forty four,” she said. He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. The play had started already. Aziraphale probably thought he’d been stood up. He had to get home, fast. “Are you a ghost?” 

“Huh?” he said, wrinkling his nose. She must’ve noticed that he was slightly see-through now the light was on. “No.” 

“A monster?” 

“... sort of,” he said, looking at the birthmark on her nose, just like her mother’s. A thought occurred to him. “Listen, Sophie... I think you might be able to help me.” 

She frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

He spread his arms. “Why not?” 

“You’re a monster,” she said. He cringed, and guessed that was fairly sound logic, but he couldn’t leave it there. She had her mother’s blood in her veins, and that meant there was a chance she could release him. 

“I’m not a bad monster. I haven’t hurt you, have I?” he said, despite the fact that he couldn’t even if he tried. He had no corporation. “We could be friends. You just need to say my name, three times in a row, and break that salt circle. Easy. You can do that, right?” 

“I don’t know your name,” she said, crossing her arms. “And mummy said not to touch the line.” 

_Your mummy didn’t know I was already here,_ he thought bitterly. “My name’s C - C - rrrrr - it’s - Cr - ugh,” he said, slumping down, feeling the magical block on his vocal chords. “I can’t say it.” 

Her face suddenly lit up. “We could play charades!” 

He opened his mouth, about to dismiss the idea, but nothing better came to mind. He shrugged. “Yeah, all right,” he said. It’s not like this night could get any weirder. “Okay, so...” 

He held up one finger. “One word,” she said, concentrating hard. He flapped his arms, and mimed a beak opening and shutting with his hand. “A bird. Bird? Is that it?” 

He shook his head. He tugged his sleeve, and mimed bird again. “Sleeve bird? Coat bird? Penguin?” she said. He squinted at her like she was an idiot. He pointed at his sleeve, then his shirt, then the bed frame... “A black bird? Oh! A raven! A crow!” 

He pointed, giving her a thumbs up. Then, he held a hand to his ear. “Sounds like...” she said, and then he started to make a motion like he was trying to swat a fly. “Fly? Annoying fly? Bee?” 

He held a double thumbs up, and gestured for her to keep going. “Crow-bee... Crow-zee... Crow-vee? Crow-lee?” 

“Yes!” he cried, louder than he’d intended. He abruptly quieted himself, looking over at the door like he expected someone to come barging in. No one did. “That’s the one. Now just say it three times in a row.” 

“No,” she said. 

“Wh - b - wha - ? Please?” he said, the word leaving a bad taste in his mouth. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t think I’m supposed to,” she said, pouting. “What if I said it twice? Crowley, Crowley. That’s good enough, right?” 

His eye twitched slightly. That was infuriating. “Not really,” he said. “Come on, say it with me. Crowley...” 

“Crowley,” she said. He repeated it. “Crowley...” 

She bailed on the last one again, shaking her head insistently. He grumbled, grinding his teeth. “What if... we made a deal?” he suggested reluctantly. She looked at him. “You set me free, and I’ll... uh...” 

She looked at her hands folded in her lap. “Can you make mummy stop doing magic and letting monsters in?” she asked. He raised his eyebrows, not sure whether to be offended or impressed. “It scares me.” 

“Do I scare you?” 

“A little bit,” she said. He scratched his neck guiltily. 

“I can try and make her stop,” he said. There was already a plot forming in his head, figuring out exactly what buttons to push. He couldn’t control human free will directly, but he could guide it. It was his specialty, in fact. He held up his hand with a small smile. “And you’ll let me go. Pinky promise?” 

A grin crept onto her face. “Pinky promise,” she said, reaching out to make the promise. Her hand passed through his, but she seemed to think that it counted nonetheless. “Okay. Now?” 

“Now’s good,” he said impatiently. He glanced at the clock. He was very, very late, and he’d need to do a lot of grovelling once he got back to Aziraphale. 

She nodded, and took a deep breath. “Crowley... Crowley...” she said. There was an instant where he worried she wouldn’t follow through, but a pinky promise was a pinky promise. “Crowley.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the formatting error when I first published it & thank you for your patience. All fixed now :)


	2. The Fright of Their Lives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for very dark themes/horror writing in this chapter 
> 
> And wow it’s been a long time I’m so sorry

Sophie’s mother prowled the halls, never letting her guard down. At any moment, she expected a call from the next room — _Rachel! We got him!_ — and yet none came. She doubted God was on their side in this fight. They’d done nothing to deserve it. She held out her iron dagger, jumping at every flickering shadow. She edged into the kitchen, listening to the faintly comforting sounds of her friends searching the corridors nearby. Half-light glared off the edges of the stainless steel countertops, while the rest of the room sat steeped in darkness. A shriek rent the silence.

She gasped, crashing against the wall, and relaxed a moment later. It hadn’t been a scream. The noise blared, electronic and inhuman, before settling into the relentless hum of static. It was the old radio in the corner. She breathed deeply, trying to settle her racing heart, clutching her dagger like a lifeline. The wiring was probably shot in that old radio; it was bound to malfunction at some point. Glancing over her shoulder, she reached out to turn it off. 

“... mummy?” 

She froze. Her throat tightened. Had there really been a voice among the static, or was it just her frayed nerves? The radio droned on, saying nothing, and yet forcing her to listen. She knew that voice. It... It sounded like Sophie, her baby girl, but it couldn’t have been. She was safe, in a salt circle, and the demon couldn’t influence their world anyway. It was impossible. Unless... unless he’d found a loophole... 

“I... I want my mummy,” said the tearful voice between snatches of white noise. 

Rachel’s heart dropped. “Sophie?” she cried, gripping the radio in both hands. “Can you hear me? Are you there?”

There was a sniffle, and a pitiable sob. “Wh — Why won’t you just go away?” she said, raising her voice in desperation. With a sickening lurch, Rachel knew that she wasn’t talking to her. Someone else was there with her. 

The static crackled in the air. Through that ominous noise came a dark, wicked chuckle. “Because mummy forgot to check for monsters under the bed,” he drawled; she would know that demon’s voice anywhere. “Didn’t you, Rachel?”

The radio cut out abruptly, plunging her into silence. She threw it down, sprinting out of the kitchen as fast as her legs would go. Her robes flapped around her as she took the stairs three at a time, screaming her daughter’s name. The other cultists shouted in her wake. Sophie’s door came into view, innocuous and silent. 

She slammed into it with all her weight. It shuddered, refusing to move. With a screech of frustration, she grasped the handle, rattling it frantically. She pounded on the door. “Sophie! Sophie, can you hear me?” she cried. She tried the latch again. This door didn’t even have a lock, leaving no doubt about what was keeping it shut. “Whatever it’s saying, ignore it. Don’t listen.“

The others began to arrive, clustering around her, throwing their combined weight against the door. “Listen — Listen, you _bastard,_ ” she screamed. “Don’t you touch her. Don’t you touch my daughter. She’s done nothing to you, this is _my_ fault. I brought you here. Leave her out of this!”

From inside the room, a shuffle finally broke the silence. A scuff, a crack, a serpentine hiss... Rachel bit back tears, listening to the demon moving around in that room. Somehow, he’d gained a foothold in the material world. Somehow... he’d outsmarted them all. She’d been a fool, summoning the original tempter into her home. The door clicked. She jumped, glancing at the person beside her. She reached for the door handle again. 

He caught her wrist. “It could be a trap.”

She twisted from his grip. “That’s my daughter. I don’t care,” she said, and opened the door.

It opened by only a few inches before stopping abruptly, held in place like a stone wall. She peered through the gap, her heart beating erratically. This was cruel. The demon hadn’t let her in... but there was something he wanted her to see. He wanted her to look at what he’d done. The room was dark, as if the air itself had been smeared in pitch, but that shuffling noise still persisted... Sophie’s night light flicked on. A sob ripped from Rachel’s throat.

Sophie was nowhere to be seen. In her place, at the heart of a ruined salt circle which had been supposed to protect her, there was an enormous black snake. It was the Serpent of Eden itself. Its coils weighed down the bed, making the frame bow beneath its weight, as it slithered aimlessly over the empty sheets. Rachel’s eyes tracked across the rippling, sinuous body in mute horror. Its tongue flickered out. It turned its head, guiding her eyes to the child-sized lump distorting its belly from inside. 

The door slammed shut. He’d barely given her time to process what she’d seen. She stood, struck dumb with horror and grief. The full depth of it hadn’t yet reached her. Her hands trembled all the way down to her fingertips as she felt the rising tide of hysteria begin to grip her, making her deaf to the agitated questions of her fellow cultists. The door clicked open again. 

Her breath caught. This time, it needed no encouragement. It swung open of its own accord with a low, ominous creak, revealing the bedroom again. The snake was gone. Sophie lay asleep, safe and sound, beneath her quilt; Rachel would’ve collapsed in relief, had there not been a thin, dark figure sat on the end of her daughter’s bed. She lunged forward, dagger raised, her face twisted with rage. Unmoved, Crowley snapped his fingers.

Everything stopped. The footfalls of her colleagues fell silent, and the knife vanished from her hand. A freezing sensation washed over her, halting her where she stood. Crowley folded his hands in his lap, and looked at her, his eyes glowing like the yellow nightlight. 

“You... You...” she spluttered, consumed with rage yet unable to act on it. 

“Snake?” he said glibly. 

“How? How have you done this?” she barked, wrestling against the invisible bonds keeping her still. 

He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Very handy with illusions, me,” he said, avoiding the meat of the question. She’d have to figure that one for herself. “The girl’s fine. You were right.”

She narrowed her eyes, her laboured breathing beginning to even out. “About what?”

Crowley leaned on his knees, looking her dead in the eye. “She’s done nothing to me. You’re the one who brought me here,” he said, jabbing a finger at her accusingly. “This is _your_ fault.”

She swallowed thickly. “I know.”

“Good. Then I’ve made my point,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. Sophie didn’t even stir. He drew close to Rachel, hissing in her ear. “There are far worse demons than me lurking in the dark, you know. Ones that aren’t so patient with humans. Ones that won’t bother with the tricks.”

She set her jaw. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I showed you what you could’ve lost tonight,” he said, his eyes flicking over to the sleeping girl. “Take my advice. If I were you, I wouldn’t go summoning anything else from now own, capiche?” 

Tears sprung to her eye. She gave a short nod. The nightlight flickered, plunging them into darkness for a moment. When it returned, the demon was gone, and she heard the clatter of footsteps as her so-called friends rushed in after her. Sophie startled awake. “Mummy?” she said, wide-eyed and intimidated by the cluster of strangers in her room. 

“Sophie,” she cried, throwing herself down beside her, dragging her into a hug. 

“Rachel! The demon, where did he go?” one of the cultists barked, ignoring her daughter’s distress. 

She glared over her shoulder, clutching Sophie to her chest. “Gone. It’s over,” she said. “Now get out of my house. All of you.”

“What?” he said, looking at the others. “You can’t just — “

 _”Out!”_ she screamed.

Crowley startled awake, back in his corporation. Everything was dark. “Argh — what the — ?” he said, enclosed on all sides by an odd rubbery fabric, like he was caught in the belly of a giant serpent (ironically). He thrashed and fought against it, cursing. There was a shout nearby, and the purr of a zip being undone.

Crowley sat up, squinting at the flashing red-and-blue lights around him. He was outside his block of flats, on a gurney, apparently about to be loaded into an ambulance. An ashen-faced paramedic stood beside him, his jaw slack. 

“Oh, thank heavens! Finally!” cried a prim voice from the other side of the car park. Aziraphale shouldered his way past another medic, striding over to Crowley’s side. “Crowley, my dear, I’m glad you’re awake.”

“Angel, great, glad you’re here. Look, sorry about missing out on the play...” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

He tutted. “Oh, not at all! I’ve had a rather eventful evening on my own,” he said with a sharp glare at the paramedics. They hung their heads, shying away. “I‘ve been trying to explain to these young whippersnappers that you are not, in fact, dead, no matter what their doodads and gizmoes have been telling them.”

“Dead?” he echoed, then it finally clicked. He looked down at the black covering. “Was I in a _body bag?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn’t proof read but it was WAY overdue, so I just typed it up and published it right away :)


End file.
